White Apparel.
London: Thos. Harrild, 1863. First edition. We could not locate much information on Charlotte Elizabeth Keddle (1833 – ?). She helped run a girls’ Sunday school in Beaminster, Dorset and used her art sales to raise money for the church, including for the building of St. Peter’s Church in Eype. White Apparel seems to be her only published book. With a chromolithographed floral title-page and ten chromolithographs of white flowers. Each floral plate is accompanied by a leaf of text from the Bible printed in black and red with gold accents. Foxing to cloth and some rubbing to head of spine. All edges gilt. Some foxing and toning to leaves. One leaf loose (laid in at original position). A good copy of a scarce work. Publisher’s white cloth stamped in gilt. Quarto. [26] ff. (plus interleaving). Item #17551
Thomas Harrild (1822 – 1867) was the son of Robert Harrild, co-inventor (with John Baxter) of the composition roller. Thomas, who began his career as a chromolithographer for Joseph Cundall with books like The Two Doves (1845), was a prolific printer, but the present work is one of just a few titles that bear his name as a publisher. His only other major work under his imprint seems to be a chromolithographed edition of Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ, which he printed and published in 1866.
OCLC records seven copies: four in the UK (Cambridge, BL, National Library of Scotland, and Manchester Metropolitan University) and three in the US (Columbia, the Claremont Colleges, and the Huntington). McLean, Victorian Book Design, pp. 37, 54.
Price: $1,250.00